Long Shot
by PinkFalcon
Summary: Those annoying little unclassified snippets that are too long to be drabbles, but lacking that quality that defines a oneshot. Every genre, various ratings, all Trigun. Most likely VxMe and WxMi for the pairings though, 'cause I'm canon like that. :D
1. An Old Meeting Place

**An Old Meeting Place  
By PinkFalcon**

Dominique didn't like the look of the place. The town was old—that much was obvious from the dilapidated buildings collapsing in on themselves everywhere she looked—but this place...There was just something about it that seemed...off.

"You comin' or what?"

Zazie the Beast was watching her from the doorway. He stepped inside when she followed, the door swinging shut behind him, thwacking loudly against Dominique's hand. The din inside the establishment was more than enough to smother it.

Dominique followed him to the bar, pulled out a tall stool beside him, and sat somewhat uncomfortably on the shiny, poofy seat. Zazie's legs swung childlike more than a foot above the polished floor, his eyes set eagerly on the crisply dressed barkeep as the man rushed up and down the bar in a flurry to serve. Soda and alcohol sloshed over the rims of the mugs; besides the occasional speckling of crumbs, the liquid seemed to be the only mess in the place.

"How do they keep it so clean?" she murmured, unnerved. Zazie tore his eyes away from a tin of sweets long enough to glance at her. He shrugged.

"Legato-sama likes it that way. They've seen what he does to people who don't listen to him, I suppose."

Dominique swept her eye in a single lingering arc all around the room. She took in the gloating customers laughing over their half-empty plates, the stupid expression most of the children wore, the way the room glinted and sparkled with cleanliness—not a speck of sand anywhere!—and muttered, "He would, wouldn't he?"

"They couldn't scrub all the bloodstains outta the last place, so they rebuilt it, I think." Zazie was staring thoughtfully at a spot on the unscuffed floor. "It's the same one, just...newer. He made 'em redo it. He hates blood, you know. So messy. And that sand irritates him too, after a while. It gets _everywhere_."

"I'm well aware, Beast." Dominique sighed and drummed her fingers on the countertop. Where was he? It wasn't like him to be late, especially when he was planning to go over strategies, to relay information given to him by Knives himself. Dominique shuddered at the thought. She couldn't imagine dealing with that monster all alone. The things he did...he wasn't human. He couldn't be.

Men were beginning to eye her from both ends of the counter. She pulled her hat lower over her metal eye and tried not to attract attention. She didn't dare kill anyone without Legato's permission; not if this was one of his favorite places. But honestly, what did he find so appealing about a breakfast bar?

"Here he is," said Zazie suddenly, and nodded to Dominique's other side. All around her the bar went quiet, like someone had simply twisted the volume knob down to zero. Then the hushed whispers started.

A porcelain clink on the counter beside her announced the arrival of a stack of pancakes. There was a flurry of movement; thick white cloth billowed out dramatically and then Legato was sitting beside her, grinning that unnerving, unhinged grin that only he could produce. He raised a silver fork in salute to Zazie, who nodded a greeting in return, then brought the utensil down to hover over the steaming food as he set eerie golden eyes on Dominique.

"Shall we begin, then?"

-

**Author's Note:** So yeah. Just a little ditty I typed up in response to a challenge (the title). The only requirement was that it had to be at least five hundred words—ended up 555. Whoa, creepeh. O.O I like Legato's sweet tooth. :D


	2. Bringing Home the Bacon

**Bringing Home the Bacon  
By PinkFalcon**

Knives' bare hand rested against the plant's glass wall like it was just that—a glass wall and nothing more. Her raw power blended with his skin so seamlessly, so naturally, that Legato was awed.

"Look at them run. They'll never make it."

"Sir?" Legato tore his attention from the spectacle before him, followed Knives' eyes out along the horizon. A small, ragged herd of lumpy dots could just barely be seen shimmering behind the heat waves released from Gunsmoke's cooling sand. In another hour it would be completely dark; when the suns set here they set fast.

Knives' chuckle lacked any humor Legato could sense. He glanced once at his subordinate, smirking, then regarded the plant's frail hand, resting smoothly against his own.

"She's afraid," he murmured, almost inaudibly. "But she needn't be. Not anymore. With that human scum gone she'll finally be free to live a life of her own again. As for the humans, well, they deserve what's coming to them. That and more."

"They might live," Legato reminded him. Humans were annoying like that.

"You think so? It's quite a furnace out there." Knives' wild eyes focused on the scorched landscape once more. "This planet is an oven—a hungry, sizzling skillet, if you will. She loves to eat things alive. Consider me her doting husband." His grin twisted suddenly into something much more malicious, his teeth pointed like the spines of a sand salmon. "I won't cook for her, but I'll bring home the bacon."

-

**Author's Note:** OMG so twisted. O.O Sorry, I love writing Legato and Knives. There's just something about those two... **-shivers- **Anywho, This was another challenge. Pretty much anything with the title inside the text somewhere is a challenge. Um, had to be 250 words or less. It's 250 exactly. XD I'm just good like that, I guess.


	3. Lost in Translation

**Lost in Translation  
By PinkFalcon**

Moving from place to place was almost never fun, and it definitely wasn't easy. Things inevitably got left behind. There was just no helping it.

"This yours?"

Vash had found the worn, soft roll of cloth on the floor in the doorway to Wolfwood's room. When Wolfwood saw what the Humanoid Typhoon was holding up he dropped the belt he was securing around the Punisher's arm and hurried over.

"Gimme that." He swiped at it. Vash lifted it easily from his reach, intrigued.

"So it is?"

"No, of course not. I just like to collect worked skins—it's a fetish of mine. Now hand it over, noodle noggin."

"But what is it?"

Vash held it up as high as he could and swiftly unrolled it. The ink staining its folds was a deep, rich black and written in a small, uptight hand. Vash squinted up at it.

"This isn't your handwriting. Whose is it?"

"None of your goddam business. Now give it." He'd ceased struggling. Now he merely stood with an outstretched hand and an annoyed expression on his dark-featured face.

Vash mouthed some of the more largely-written words. "'Though shalt not keep for thine own when others want with need...' Hmm. Looks like a bunch of rules to me. What're they for?"

"My religion," said Wolfwood gruffly. Vash handed him the skin and he hastily rolled it, his hands obviously familiar with its weight and texture. Vash's eyes lit up.

"Really? So it's like your Bible?"

"It's _the_ Bible. Everyone's gotta keep his own copy with him. Higher-class priests get actual paper."

Vash whistled. "Impressive. So where's the rest of it?"

Wolfwood stared at him like he'd suddenly realized he's been talking to the wrong end of a thomas. "That's it, Tongari. There is no more."

"Well sure there is!" Vash exclaimed. "The Bible's this big thick book with these really thin, see-through pages and columns and columns of this tiny, miniscule type..." He trailed off when he noticed the look of astonishment Wolfwood was giving him.

"Real paper, huh? Typed? Sounds pretty luxurious."

"Not when you have a lot of trees," Vash reminded him, then stopped, frowning. "You've never even seen it, have you?"

"What, trees?"

"No, the Bible."

Wolfwood shrugged and flapped the rolled skin. "This is all the Bible I need, my pointy-haired friend. As long as I live it truthfully and do not stray from the written path, I shall not fail."

Vash's eyes were an unreadable dark shade of emerald. "The Bible says 'Thou shalt not kill,'" he said softly.

"Does it really?" Wolfwood looked thoughtful as he pocketed the creased leather. "Hmm. Amazing, the things that get lost over time, eh?"

-

**Author's Note: **Yet another challenge! This one was about whether or not Nick actually used a Bible. Someone wrote a really amusing one (it involved _LoTR_) and got me to thinking, and what I thought was this: They wouldn't use paper. I mean, trees are like...nonexistant, right? So...no paper. Whoa, slow down. Deep Thought in process here. o.o Yeah, it's late. I should be asleep. Right. Um, I wasn't watching my word count with this. **-checks it-** It's 448, in case you were wondering. I was. 8D


End file.
